Tuesday, May 16, 2006

A bus for this Commemoration , which is organised each year by the Republican Movement , will leave from outside the old McBirneys/Virgin Megastore site on Dublin's Aston Quay at 12.45PM on the day : the Commemoration itself starts at 2.30PM .

The same bus will leave Bodenstown at 5.30PM that afternoon on its return to Dublin city centre . The fare is ten Euro per person .

For information on the death of Wolfe Tone , scroll through this piece(article starts on March 9 on that page) which was published on this blog last year . "To subvert the tyranny of our execrable government, to break the connection with England, the never-failing source of all our political evils and to assert the independence of my country- these were my objectives. To unite the whole people of Ireland, to abolish the memory of all past dissensions, and to substitute the common name of Irishman in place of the denominations of Protestant, Catholic and Dissenter - these were my means." -Theobald Wolfe Tone .

MacGIOLLA's GUERRILLAS .......Fifteen years ago , the leadership of the 'Official Republican Movement' (now 'The Workers' Party') stated that their armed wing , the 'Official IRA' , went out of existence .Today , the 'Official IRA' is alive and well and living mainly in Belfast and Newry . In the days when both organisations were operating in an overt way , the leadership of 'The Workers' Party' and the 'Official IRA' overlapped to a certain degree . Tomas MacGiolla , the man who led the 'Official IRA' for the last twenty-five years has always maintained the position that the 'Official IRA' went out of existence in 1972 . But the 'Official IRA' still march on , not an army fighting the British , but as a fund-collecting agency . DEREK DUNNE traces the roots of the 'Official IRA' and 'The Workers' Party' .From 'IN DUBLIN' magazine , October 1987 .

In 1974 , Belfast had held a Convention to find out if the Official organisation should contest elections : the vote went against the motion by sixty-six to sixty-four . The leadership demanded and got three recounts ! In the following two weeks , whole cumanns (ie branches) found themselves suspended from membership : another Convention was called and the original decision was reversed - the leadership had demanded the second Convention "...due to groundswell of opinion among the ranks.. " !

Half of Belfast went with the INLA : a feud followed which left five dead and more than forty injured . Sean Garland was among those who were shot . Liam McMillan stated at a Belfast OIRA Command meeting that he "...would smash the IRSP within a fortnight .. " : as truce talks were under way , Gerry Steenson , still a teenager , shot Liam McMillan dead . The feud ended a few days later following the intervention of an intermediary . But an OIRA order went out that Seamus Costello was to be shot in retaliation , and he was killed by Dublin Official IRA Commander Jim Flynn in 1977 : Flynn was killed by the INLA in 1982 .

Prior to the split , Sean Garland had proposed that there be one structure for the OIRA and Sinn Fein the Workers Party : it was generally held that Cathal Goulding was the mind behind the decision to wind down the military end of things ; SFWP had come to firmly believe that in order for their revised 'Stages Theory' to work , another 'Stage' would have to be inserted .......(MORE LATER).

EOGHAN HARRIS : OUT OF THE SHADOWS ....... From 'MAGILL' magazine , November 1997 .By Brenda Power .

Eamonn McCann said at the time - " It was well known that the Stickies killed Ranger Willie Best , and what I can't understand about Eoghan Harris is that he never took responsibility for the crimes committed by his associates during that period . He calls people 'Hush Puppy Provos' , and 'Sneaking Regarders' , and he applies these epithets to people who were never as close to paramilitaries as he knowingly was at that time . There was only one party which said that Stalin was right , which defended the invasion of Hungary and the Berlin Wall and offered abject obeisance to Kim II Sung , and that was the Official Republican Movement . In the light of those mistakes , you might expect Eoghan Harris to be a little more humble in pointing out other people's . "

Eoghan Harris is incensed to be asked about those contradictions : " If you write anything that links me to Official Sinn Fein I will sue . Seamus Costello once tried to recruit me and Cathal Goulding said - 'Put him writing pamphlets , he can't keep a secret' and he said to me ' Stay out of all that shit' . I'd be useless at clandestine activity , that's what's so crazy about trying to link me with these McAleese leaks , I never thought she was that much of a Shinner , I would'nt be able to keep my mouth shut about it . The fact was that there was a military wing attached to the Workers' Party and I was the political party's chief pamphleteer , which sometimes brought me into the same company , but if I can be smeared by association then so can Pat Rabbitte , so can everyone who was around at the time .

I'm an idealogue and a polemecist , it was fuck all to do with me , my job was to educate our membership to give up the gun , to convert them from republicanism to revisionism , to go to the old guard and say - ' Well , where did the guns get us ?' And I was very good at finding fighting formulas that did'nt require force - sit-ins and street demos , but no guns - I was a skilled propagandist at covering up our retreat from the gun . I felt the Provos were shading the balance of terror , and I could'nt go around lecturing the Official IRA to lay down their guns while the Provos were shooting politicians like Trevor McNulty ....... " (MORE LATER).

THE 26 COUNTIES : A STATE BUT NOT A NATION .......The history of the Free State has been one of progressively solidifying partition : cross-border collaboration is only one aspect of this .From 'IRIS' magazine , November 1983.No By-Line.

The absence of unionists from the 'New Ireland Forum' allows the reality of the sectarian nature of such a 'new' 6-county State to be ignored - the exclusion of Sinn Fein from the Forum allows that sectarian reality , the brutal presence of British force , and the major advantages of real unity to be ignored .

The Forum is being hailed as a success at this stage because it continues to externalise the North ; equally , while it may appear hopelessly illogical to maintain Section 31 of the State Broadcasting Act against Sinn Fein elected representatives when they are beamed into the 26 counties on BBC and UTV , the very fact that they are on those channels and not RTE also psychologically externalises them from the point of view of the Free State viewer .

So confident is the Dublin Administration of this strengthened partition that the State courts are on the verge of introducing political extradition and can authorise the Free State Army to officially take part in a British Army 'Remembrance' ceremony which celebrates British involvement in the whole array of military imperialism , including Kenya , Cyprus , Aden and their 'involvement' today in Six Irish counties ....... (MORE LATER).